The three hospitals (Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Boston Medical Center) were fined for allowing ABC film a documentary on site without obtaining patient authorization

Massachusetts General Hospital, Bingham and Women’s Hospital and Boston Medical Center have reached an agreement with the Office of Civil Rights for $999,000 for violating patient privacy during the filming of an ABC documentary.

All three health systems reached separate settlements with the OCR for inviting ABC film crews to film on site without first getting patient authorization. MGH was fined $515,000, BWH settled for $384,000 and BMC paid $100,000. All three health systems would implement staff training as part of individual corrective action plans.

Those plans will include developing policies and procedures around photography, video recording and audio recording. The hospitals will also need a process for both evaluating and approving requests from the media to film not otherwise open to the public.

According to the settlement agreements, all three hospitals denied they impermissibly disclosed patient health data and said they did obtain proper consent. Further, the plans stated the agreements are not an admission of liability and “potential violations alleged in the covered conduct do not constitute findings of fact.”

The findings after the OCR investigation told a different story as they found there was no concession the hospitals weren’t in violation and not liable for monetary fines.

OCR director Roger Severino said in a statement that patients in hospitals expect to meet doctors and nurses when receiving care, not film crews recording them at their most private and vulnerable moments. “Hospitals must get authorization from patients before allowing strangers to have access to patients and their medical information,” he added.

This is the second HIPAA settlement involving improper filming. New York-Presbyterian Hospital settled with OCR in April 2016 for $2.2 million, when the health data of two patients was revealed to the ABC film crew for the TV show “NY Med.” OCR called the breach “an egregious disclosure.”